a bug in IE7 - body -direction:rtl - css

Question

When I set the body element direction to rtl, in IE7 (compatability view in IE8), and hover over ul li, it shifts weirdly to the left by a couple of inches. A good example for this is the default ASP.NET MVC CSS (after adding direction:rtl to the body element). What is happening here?
The example code:
/*----------------------------------------------------------
The base color for this template is #5c87b2. If you'd like
to use a different color start by replacing all instances of
#5c87b2 with your new color.
----------------------------------------------------------*/
body
{
background-color: #5c87b2;
font-size: .75em;
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Sans-Serif;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
color: #696969;
direction:rtl;
}
a:link
{
color: #034af3;
text-decoration: underline;
}
a:visited
{
color: #505abc;
}
a:hover
{
color: #1d60ff;
text-decoration: none;
}
a:active
{
color: #12eb87;
}
p, ul
{
margin-bottom: 20px;
line-height: 1.6em;
}
/* HEADINGS
----------------------------------------------------------*/
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6
{
font-size: 1.5em;
color: #000;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
h1
{
font-size: 2em;
padding-bottom: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
}
h2
{
padding: 0 0 10px 0;
}
h3
{
font-size: 1.2em;
}
h4
{
font-size: 1.1em;
}
h5, h6
{
font-size: 1em;
}
/* this rule styles <h2> tags that are the
first child of the left and right table columns */
.rightColumn > h1, .rightColumn > h2, .leftColumn > h1, .leftColumn > h2
{
margin-top: 0;
}
/* PRIMARY LAYOUT ELEMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* you can specify a greater or lesser percentage for the
page width. Or, you can specify an exact pixel width. */
.page
{
width: 90%;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
#header
{
position: relative;
margin-bottom: 0px;
color: #000;
padding: 0;
}
#header h1
{
font-weight: bold;
padding: 5px 0;
margin: 0;
color: #fff;
border: none;
line-height: 2em;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 32px !important;
}
#main
{
padding: 30px 30px 15px 30px;
background-color: #fff;
margin-bottom: 30px;
_height: 1px; /* only IE6 applies CSS properties starting with an underscrore */
}
#footer
{
color: #999;
padding: 10px 0;
text-align: center;
line-height: normal;
margin: 0;
font-size: .9em;
}
/* TAB MENU
----------------------------------------------------------*/
ul#menu
{
border-bottom: 1px #5C87B2 solid;
padding: 0 0 2px;
position: relative;
margin: 0;
text-align: right;
}
ul#menu li
{
display: inline;
list-style: none;
}
ul#menu li#greeting
{
padding: 10px 20px;
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: none;
line-height: 2.8em;
color: #fff;
}
ul#menu li a
{
padding: 10px 20px;
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: none;
line-height: 2.8em;
background-color: #e8eef4;
color: #034af3;
}
ul#menu li a:hover
{
background-color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
}
ul#menu li a:active
{
background-color: #a6e2a6;
text-decoration: none;
}
ul#menu li.selected a
{
background-color: #fff;
color: #000;
}
/* FORM LAYOUT ELEMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------*/
fieldset
{
margin: 1em 0;
padding: 1em;
border: 1px solid #CCC;
}
fieldset p
{
margin: 2px 12px 10px 10px;
}
fieldset label
{
display: block;
}
fieldset label.inline
{
display: inline;
}
legend
{
font-size: 1.1em;
font-weight: 600;
padding: 2px 4px 8px 4px;
}
input[type="text"]
{
width: 200px;
border: 1px solid #CCC;
}
input[type="password"]
{
width: 200px;
border: 1px solid #CCC;
}
/* TABLE
----------------------------------------------------------*/
table
{
border: solid 1px #e8eef4;
border-collapse: collapse;
}
table td
{
padding: 5px;
border: solid 1px #e8eef4;
}
table th
{
padding: 6px 5px;
text-align: left;
background-color: #e8eef4;
border: solid 1px #e8eef4;
}
/* MISC
----------------------------------------------------------*/
.clear
{
clear: both;
}
.error
{
color:Red;
}
#menucontainer
{
margin-top:40px;
}
div#title
{
display:block;
float:left;
text-align:left;
}
#logindisplay
{
font-size:1.1em;
display:block;
text-align:right;
margin:10px;
color:White;
}
#logindisplay a:link
{
color: white;
text-decoration: underline;
}
#logindisplay a:visited
{
color: white;
text-decoration: underline;
}
#logindisplay a:hover
{
color: white;
text-decoration: none;
}
.field-validation-error
{
color: #ff0000;
}
.input-validation-error
{
border: 1px solid #ff0000;
background-color: #ffeeee;
}
.validation-summary-errors
{
font-weight: bold;
color: #ff0000;
}

Answer 1

I've seen lots of issues with RTL pages in all versions of IE. Recommended practice is to set the RTL direction on the HTML tage and not use the CSS direction property.
<html dir="rtl">
It's worth trying this to start with to see if the behaviour changes. Also makes sure that the page is rendering in standards mode so that you get more consistent results overall.